and undignified, but which appears to me perfectly apposite, and fitted by its very familiarity to answer the better its purpose of affording explanation.

The utility of what is called paper-currency is universally acknowledged and perceived. Without possessing any intrinsic value, it is a convenient representative of coins and ingots of the precious metals. And it possesses this character, from its being known or confidently believed, that those who issue it are ready, on demand, to exchange it for those precious metals. And the occurrence, from time to time, of this demand, and the constant liability to it, are the great check to an over-issue of the papermoney. But if paper-money be made a legal tender, and not convertible into gold and silver at the pleasure of the holder,-if persons are required to receive it in payment, by an arbitrary decree of the Government, either that paper shall be considered as having an intrinsic value, or again, that it shall be considered as representing bullion, or land, or some other intrinsically valuable commodity, the existence and amount of which, and the ability of Government to produce it, are to be believed, not by the test of any one's demanding and obtaining

9 This was the case with the Assignats and Mandats of France.

very

payment, but on the word of the Government that issues this inconvertible paper-currency, then, the consequences which ensue are well known. The precious metals gradually disappear, and a profusion of worthless paper alone remains.

proof to be

on demand.

Even so it is with human teaching in religion. Scripture It is highly useful, as long as the instructors produced refer the People to Scripture, exhorting and assisting them to " prove all things and hold fast that which is right;"-as long as the Church "ordains nothing contrary to God's word,"nothing, in short, beyond what a christian Community is authorized both by the essential character of a Community, and by Christ's sanction, to enact; and requires nothing to be believed as a point of christian faith that may not be declared" (i. e. satisfactorily proved) to be taken from Holy Scripture. But when a Church, or any of its Pastors, ceases to make this payment on demand if I may so speak of Scripture-proof," and requires implicit faith, on human authority, in human dogmas or interpretations, all check is

r

"

The word "declared" is likely to mislead the English reader, from its being ordinarily used in the present day in a different sense. The Latin" declarare," of which it was evidently intended to be a translation, signifies "to make clear""to set forth plainly."

s See Appendix, Note (K.)

System of
Reserve.

removed to the introduction of any conceivable amount of falsehood and superstition; till human inventions may have overlaid and disfigured Gospel-truth, and Man's usurped authority have gradually superseded divine: even as was the case with the rabbinical Jews, who continued to profess the most devout reverence for the Mosaic Law, even at the time when we are told that "in vain they worshipped God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."t

§ 28. It is worth remarking also that the persons who make this use of Tradition, are often found distinctly advocating the deliberate suppression, in the instruction of the great mass of Christians, of a large portion of the Gospeldoctrines which are the most earnestly set forth in Scripture; as a sort of esoteric mystery, of which ordinary believers are unworthy, and which should be "reserved" as a reward for a long course of pious submission. This system of 66 reserve or economy" is vindicated, by studiously confounding it with the gradual initiation of Christians in the knowledge of their religion, in proportion as they are “able to bear it;" i. e. able and willing to understand each point that is presented to their minds and the

66

+ See Dr. Hawkins on Tradition.

necessity of gradual teaching,-of reading the first line of a passage before the second, and the care requisite to avoid teaching any thing, which though true in itself, would be falsely understood by the hearers, is thus confounded with the system of withholding a portion of Gospeltruth from those able and willing to receive it; the system of "shunning to set before men all the counsel of God," and of having one kind of religion for the initiated few, and another for the mass of the Christian World. Very different was the Apostle Paul's Gospel, which he assures us, "if it was hid, was hid from them that are lost" (men on the road to destruction, áπoλλvμένους), "whom the god of this world hath blinded."

sion of

truths may

falsifica

But the charge of teaching something different Suppresfrom what they inwardly believe, the advocates Gospelof this system repel, by alleging that all they do amount to teach is agreeable to Scripture, although they tion." withhold a part, and do not teach all that is to be found in Scripture as if this did not as effectually constitute two different religions as if they had added on something of their own. For, by expunging or suppressing at pleasure, that which remains may become totally different from what the religion would have been if exhibited as a whole.

It has been remarked that every statue existed

Doctrines not clearly revealed.

in the block of marble from which it was carved; and that the Sculptor merely discloses it, by removing the superfluous portions; - that the Medicean Venus, for instance, has not in it a single particle which did not originally exist exactly in the same relative position as now; the Artist having added nothing, but merely taken away. Yet the statue is as widely different a thing from the original block, as if something had been added. What should we think of a man's pleading that such an image is not contemplated in the commandment against making an image, because it is not " made," as if it had been moulded, or cast, out of materials brought together for the purpose? Should any one scruple to worship a moulded, but not a sculptured image, his scruple would not be more absurdly misplaced, than if he should hold himself bound, in his teaching, not to add on to Scripture anything he did not believe to be true, but allowed to suppress any portions of Gospeltruth at his pleasure, and to exhibit to his People the remaining portions, as the whole system of their religion.

It may be added also, that as a Christian teacher is not authorized either to suppress any portion of the Gospel as unfit for those disposed and able to receive it, or to inculcate as an essential portion of it, any thing not revealed in